


In Waves

by ombrophilia



Category: Dark Souls
Genre: Body Horror, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-01-24 09:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ombrophilia/pseuds/ombrophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her body was beginning to deteriorate, all the life and vigor being drawn out from her and sinking into the black swirl on her shoulder blade. At least her mind hadn't started to go yet. Before it did, she constantly told herself, she would remind herself of who she truly was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When All Light Dies

**Author's Note:**

> At least a little inspired by the fantastic Dark Souls fanfic "Old Soul" by The Extreme Piercing on FFNet. May incorporate bits of lore that haven't been canonized yet, but that's the fun of these games.

Marisa trembled like her armor had suddenly doubled in weight. An onslaught of gigantic rats was one thing, but now their self-proclaimed king wanted her in his service? She watched his diseased fangs scrape along the bones of another traveler—likely one of his previous subjects—and peel a rusted ring from its index finger. Damp with slobber, it clattered from the stone slab the king rested on to her feet below.

"Swearest thou to serve me true?" The rat spoke in a deep voice, presumably befitting of his position. Marisa glanced down at the ring and wondered briefly whether rats even knew the concept of deceit, or whether that too was something humans had apparently ill ascribed to the king and his people. Truth told, Marisa hated the entire species. Plague-bearers and pests, all of them. But she was very clearly outmatched, and if rats worked like any other kingdom, defiance would be met with a force even more terrifying than the vanguard.

She knelt, sticking one knee in a pile of skulls and sludge that kept its form well despite the added weight of a fully-grown human. The end of her staff dug into soil to keep her balance. In the flickering torchlight, the yellowing ring proved difficult to find; as she scrabbled with her free hand, she could have sworn she heard a dark chuckle from above.

"Thou hast the eyes of one who perceiveth true beauty." A smaller rat, yet still larger than the ones Marisa had seen above ground, skittered past and pushed the ring into her hand. She held back a yelp through decaying lips. "Human, I prithee serve with a true rat's honor." Placing the ring on her finger, she glanced upward. It must have been a trick of the light; rats couldn't smile. "Arise, servant."

"My liege," she mumbled out with as much respect as she could manage. It had been some time since she had gazed into an effigy like those old women had instructed her in. Her body was beginning to deteriorate, all the life and vigor being drawn out from her and sinking into the black swirl on her shoulder blade. At least her mind hadn't started to go yet. Before it did, she constantly told herself, she would remind herself of who she truly was. But not a second sooner; effigies were as rare and valuable as the fabled blue-tinted titanite. Bowing politely to her new ruler—though she never saw herself returning to this place under any circumstances—she took her torch from the wall and her leave.

"Your name is Marisa," she said to herself, wandering past a grave marker with worn, unreadable lettering. The words she spoke weren't always crystal clear, but they were important to hear nonetheless. She needed to remind herself that, no matter how many gigantic rats she fought or disturbing faces she saw in the walls and floor, she was not going insane. "You were born in Melfia. You've studied magic since you were a child. You came here to—"

A skeleton, easily three times the size of any human she'd ever met, dangled above a pit in front of her. She screamed for the first time since she had entered the hallowed crypt, which she felt was to her credit. Another laugh echoed down the burrow after her own voice faded. "Stay thyself, servant. He is my greatest conquest. Nothing more."

A king with a sick sense of humor? Wonderful. Perhaps when she finally found a cure to this curse, she could eradicate the rats' kingdom in her quest for peace among humanity. She stared down the pit in front of her and saw that it went far, far deeper than she could have anticipated. Had Majula really been built on such a weak foundation? Or maybe it wasn't always that way. Maybe whatever the town had once been was something stronger.

_Something_ had to explain why a smart-mouthed cat had taken up permanent residence in one of the houses. Marisa knew the legends about cats and their supposed immortality and ever-shifting form, of course. Until she'd met Shalquoir, she'd thought them nothing but stories told to children to console them when their pets were lost to wolves. Maybe that was how they had started. Legends had a way of getting twisted with time. Still, Shalquoir knew much more than anybody seemed to expect of her, and certainly more than anyone who made the journey to Majula from other lands.

Marisa rifled through her rucksack and pulled out a silver ring, delicately engraved in the shape of a cat's head with two fine emeralds as eyes. Too afraid to remove the symbol of her covenant with the king, she slipped the ring she'd purchased from that sweetheart of a cat on her left hand. The force that enveloped her soon after was invisible, but for someone so attuned to magic, very clearly present. Shalquoir had said that its magic would protect her from deadly falls, but Marisa hadn't yet tested it. The garrulous laddersmith from the surface wouldn't be able to help her now, here in the bowels of Drangleic. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and leapt.

Air rushed past her fast enough to lift her pauldrons from her shoulders, but when she landed on a casket jutting from the wall, she felt no more impact than if she had taken a single step down a staircase. Fantastic! Perhaps her brain would have the decency to inform her heart sometime soon. Another step down, and another, and soon she was atop a bridge spanning a pit full of muck. Why would she expect anything different? Her "liege" could have this land if this was how he preferred it.

Her torchlight showed no other way but down, so she fell once more, covering her battle-weathered greaves in a disgusting slime. It splashed to her chestplate; she nearly gagged at the odor, but an explosion behind her drew her attention first. Whipping her staff around, she yelled an ancient word and sent a bolt of blue magic flying off into the darkness. The rattle of chains followed a series of pained groans, and once again Marisa was alone amidst the silence.

At the edge of her vision, she could swear she saw strips of cloth flapping in the wind. She blinked, and they were gone. Nothing but another trick; the air down here was so stagnant and putrid that it was a wonder she could even breathe. Paying it no more attention, she trudged through the mire and entered a larger and mercifully drier cave stacked high with wooden platforms and ladders. If Shalquoir was right, some form of beast remained at the bottom of the scaffolding, or deeper still, but what could survive here for so long? No light, no fresh air... was this the dark power Carhillion had warned of? Marisa extinguished her torch with chagrin and continued her blind descent, trusting her ears and arcane senses to guide her.

The lack of light made it that much easier for Marisa to be followed without her knowing. Every inhabitant of the filthy ramshackle mess fell, their death rattles masking footsteps and rustling cloth. Floorboards creaked and snapped under their own weight, Marisa's footsteps conjuring a careful rhythm that hid equally measured breathing. Plaster and ceramic shattered in her wake, and if she noticed some unseen force destroying the more well-hidden traps, she never thought it out of the ordinary. It was only when she finally reached the bottom of Majula's gutter, partially illuminated in an eerie green glow, that she suspected something was off.

With fervor, she clutched the hilt of a sword thrust into a pile of kindling. Whether it was the sign on her back or something else about her that made her special, she didn't know, but as soon as her greying fingers let go of the hilt, the small chamber exploded in light. At first it barely made a difference; she was just as blind as before. But her eyes adjusted, and warming dirty hands on the flames of the bonfire stood another woman.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, anger rising in her voice. "I might have appreciated some _help_ on the way down." Taking a step forward, she noticed that the woman's hands were not dirty, but seemed to be flaking apart with age and decay. Her exposed skin stopped at the wrist with robes that at one point may have passed for white, but any guess at the original color was just as good. A hood covered her face, not as long as the two-tailed one of Licia back on the surface, but still vaguely familiar. With effort, Marisa could hear the shadows of words that would have to pass for this person's reply.

"Rhea. I am Rhea."

Human enough to remember her name, if nothing else. Marisa sighed as Rhea repeated the same words like a man adrift praying for the shore. Companionship was difficult to come by in the best of times, and surely she would find another discarded effigy at the feet of some corpse too dull to use it properly. "Take this," she insisted, placing the trinket into Rhea's curling fingers. It took some time, but Marisa watched the enchantments draw Rhea's memories from her hollowed mind and restore some form to her flesh. She still found the process incomprehensible; no doubt those old women had some connection to the curse, or perhaps were far stronger witches than even the Archdrakes of Lindeldt.

"I'll ask again, Rhea," Marisa said, exasperation fraying the edges of her words. The other woman's skin sagged, like her bones weren't accustomed to supporting it, and even the restorative powers of humanity couldn't remove its green pallor. Marisa's hand fell to her side, fingering a concealed dagger. Rhea choked out a gasp, then tilted her head up to meet her milky-white eyes with Marisa's.

"Long. Far longer than you may even have words for." Marisa's eyebrow quirked upward. "And yet I see the curse remains unbroken. By your grace—"

"No. You know of the curse?" Marisa dropped her hand from her side and shifted her weight to her back leg. "Then we travel together. At least let me bring you to the surface once my business down here is finished. I am Marisa of Melfia." She received no reply. "Stay here if you so choose, but I'm not returning to Majula before the monstrosity down here is dead."

"You may find that impossible," Rhea said with regret. "He is the one who brought with him the first death." Another legend, no doubt. Neither the gaoled prisoner nor the Ichorous Earth that Shalquoir had warned of remotely matched their reputations.

"Then he has been doing a poor job lately, hasn't he? If he refuses to lift a hand to cure the curse, perhaps it's time another takes up the mantle." And even if Marisa hadn't had the strength to be glib, taking the great soul of the rotten gutter-lord was the only way to continue her mission, wasn't it? "Join me in the fight if you so choose, Rhea. But don't stray far. It's been too long since either of us has seen the light of day."


	2. Ember to Inferno

"Astounding."

Rhea looked out on a magnificent vista overlooking the ocean—a true ocean, not a city of death preserved in a reservoir. The sun warmed her skin, a sensation she'd not felt since the servant of a long-dead god stole it from her. Above all else, the world above the gutter seemed full of _life_ , a bustling metropolis compared to the last time she had breathed clean air.

"You get used to it."

Marisa called at her new companion over her shoulder while Lenigrast, the poor blacksmith too stubborn to accept any help, pulled her white-hot dagger out of the kiln. The horrible mass of corpses that she'd had to go against alone had tested the very limits of her mettle, taking blow after magical blow and leaving her no option but to drive her sidearm close to breaking. For Death himself, though, Marisa found him wanting. His soul rested within her now, alongside those of the other slain lords. If the woman tending the fire were right, she only had one more obstacle in her way before she could consult with the king on curing the curse.

Melfian smiths were rare, but Marisa had visited Lenigrast's hut enough to learn that he'd be folding titanite into the steel and re-forging it. The process took a while, and she needed the rest anyway. Might as well show Rhea around town, as it were. Perhaps she needed time to acclimate herself; even the strength of the bonfire down below had seemed to terrify her.

"I'll be around, old man," she said in about as casual a voice as she could. Closing the creaky iron gate behind her (and drowning out Lenigrast's hollowed grumbles), Marisa returned her attention to Rhea, now standing at the foot of a great monument and trying to strike up a conversation with the man seated next to it.

"...idea who you mean, miss. I'm sorry."

"My apologies for bothering you. Vereor nox." Rhea stepped away on that, meeting Marisa halfway up the moss-flecked stairway. "So much of this world is familiar in all the strangest ways. It gnaws at the edges of my memory."

"It's no surprise," Marisa replied glibly. "It can't have changed that much for however long you've been down there. Come with me," she said, extending a hand. "There's someone I would have you meet. She might be able to stitch your memories together." She lowered her hand as soon as she finished talking; clearly Rhea was not one for physical contact. Just as well; it was a short walk, and there weren't many places to go otherwise. Getting lost was unlikely.

They had almost reached the house of Majula's strangest inhabitant, only to find her sitting outside the door, tail waving from side to side. "Gracious, have you been rolling in the sewer?" she asked with laughter nipping at every word and self-satisfaction consuming the sentence whole. As she always did. "Embraced another soul, have you? Good. Mmm. Your scent grows stronger yet." With grace absolutely befitting her form, she strutted inside and leapt to her table. Marisa and Rhea followed, the latter shutting the door behind them.

"Oh, _my_. Picked up a straggler?" Her pink nose sniffed the air theatrically before her eyes fixed on the still-filthy robes of the woman from the sludge below. Marisa watched recognition sparkle in Rhea's eyes and die just as quickly when she looked at the housecat. "Now, now, dearie. No need to introduce yourself. It's been ages, hm?" She put on the kind of inflection that humans used with smirks. "For you." It fit her well. "Oh, but why spoil your fun? I know why you're here, Undead. What was your name again?"

Every time Shalquoir asked—which was every time Marisa visited—the charade went on a little longer. She'd let Marisa get out a few more syllables every time before cutting her off with an elegant laugh. This time, she got to the "Mel" of "Melfia".

"Still finishing off the Old Ones, Undead?" And every time, Shalquoir never even bothered using Marisa's name. "You've only got the Writhing Ruin left, don't you? My, my. Such progress. It may be you _will_ succeed our dear King, after all."

"Spare me, Shalquoir," Marisa said, glad to finally get a word in edgewise in between the cat's laughing fits. They had similar senses of humor, but even she could only take so much tortuous stalling. "I haven't heard anyone else mention this Writhing Ruin. Not even the Herald. I hoped you could enlighten me."

Another laugh. Marisa grumbled while Rhea shifted weight from one foot to the other. "You've already come so near to that answer. Why not ask the armorer? Perhaps this matter hits rather close to home for him. Or one of his customers, at any rate." Shalquoir rose to all fours and leapt neatly from the table to a bookshelf in the corner. Marisa sighed; that was all the information she would get from this insufferable cat.

"Come, Rhea. Maughlin is just across the way." She opened the door wide and left it that way, inviting Rhea to leave first. As she crossed the threshold, she heard Shalquoir's voice one last time.

"Do take care with that soul when you find it. It loves a curious mind." She laughed again, a fading bell note above the crunch of dying grass.

Rhea mumbled something wordlessly, a poor attempt to make sense of what exactly was happening around her. Marisa perked her head up and, without a word, turned towards the precipice of the giant pit in the center of Majula. Gilligan had gone somewhere, probably to fetch more wood for his miniatures, so the only people around were the two of them. Holding on to a meticulously crafted statue for balance, she sat down and dangled her feet over the edge. "Come," she insisted again, this time letting Rhea make her own decision. It was no decision at all, really; even with her armor stinking horribly, Marisa would not let Rhea's obvious questions go unanswered.

"Have you never seen a bonfire before? You looked like it would eat you alive down there." A grin crept to Marisa's face, showing more teeth than usual through an upper lip that looked half-chewed off. It didn't take long for her to pull a thin mask up over the lower half of her face. Maybe it was the curse that drove Rhea away. Funny, that.

Rhea, the poor woman who had survived in darkness for so long, took two steps towards the edge, knelt down, and joined Marisa in a surprisingly carefree moment of relaxation. A wind rolled in from the side; she glanced over and saw a tower in the distance, and even that seemed to have torches running up its side to the dome on top. "I hope you'll excuse my ignorance. I have not seen anything of life outside of that tomb since before Lord Gwyn's successor."

"Gwyn?" Marisa echoed. The name brought up no memories. "The King of Drangleic is named Vendrick, from what I've been able to discover." Rhea's lips formed the word "Drangleic", but no sound came out. "You have been down there for a while."

"Since the end of the age of fire," Rhea said quietly, like even she was beginning to doubt herself. "You must at least know of that, Marisa." But she needn't have bothered asking. Two women from lands that neither had heard of, speaking of times that the other couldn't remember, sitting above an impossible pit that led to entirely different worlds. That man, the one with the quaint homemade armor, he had made a point of mentioning the convoluted flow of time as much as possible, but at least the land itself never seemed to change in the process.

"Shalquoir once mentioned something about the first flame," Marisa offered weakly, shrugging underneath her armor. Hopefully Rhea had experienced enough of that fickle creature to understand that that was all the information Marisa had.

"Is that what my homeland has become?" Rhea's voice kept an even keel while her mind sailed its roughest waters yet. "Another legend for the storybooks?" She would have clenched her fists until her palms bled, had Marisa's touch not stopped her. With fingers gentler than any warrior's should be, Marisa took the stained clump of cloth that Rhea had been clutching and placed it on the ground between them.

And purpose filled Marisa's voice again, all softness suddenly ground away as if against a millstone. "That mansion in front of us. There's a collection of books inside, and the mapmaker who lives there claims they were there when he moved in. Don't be so sullen, Rhea," she added, metal rattling while she got to her feet. "I've already delved down that pit once today. I won't go in after you." As she rose, she picked up the rag and pressed it into Rhea's hand along with her own. "The books are in a common tongue. I've glanced at them, but maybe you can give them a closer look."

Cale never bothered Marisa when she decided to have another look around. He was always so transfixed by those strange fires in the back room that it was a wonder his mind hadn't yet gone completely. When she decided to bring a companion this time, she didn't even bother calling out to him. They'd cross paths, or not, when she felt like initiating the conversation. "This way," Marisa said, guiding Rhea to the library with its conspicuously open flames bathing the room in a soft glow.

"Perhaps from one of the giants Vendrick supposedly conquered," she added, pointing at the vast empty pages of one particular book, propped open as a fine centerpiece to the room. "Here it is. It's not much, but maybe you'll find at least one answer you're looking for." Rhea bowed silently, her face not showing any expression beneath her hood. "If you need me, I have business with Maughlin. The armorer. You recall him, don't you?"

The playfulness, if it could be called that, behind Marisa's words was lost on Rhea. "Of course."

"Cale is at the end of the hallway. If he knows more about these books, I wish you the best in getting it out of him." She turned around, nearly content in leaving Rhea with her studies. "I won't be adventuring anywhere else without speaking with you. We'll meet with each other at the pit and share anything we've found."

A smile split her decaying lips behind the veil. "Mind the pigs." Clearly she had picked up a few things from that self-important cat. It almost felt good to leave Rhea confused like that. But it wouldn't be for too long, if Maughlin felt cooperative today. And if he didn't, well, it wasn't as though she had no idea how to grease his wheels. The walk took less time than she thought it would, and without even knocking, she stepped into the armorer's hut.

"Ah, I can already tell you're in need of something new."

"Calm down, Maughlin. I only need a cleaning." He hadn't always been this way, so greedy and eager to fleece his customers. Well, customer, singular. He used to be a meek man, stumbling over his own words so much it was a wonder his tongue hadn't fallen out—until she discovered it was coated in silver. "I've a little extra for you if you can help me with something, though."

"Are you certain?" He stretched out on the stone dais he'd taken to calling his storefront and flashed a predatory grin at the undead who'd just strutted into his shop like she owned the place. "My prices might be a bit out of your range, friend."

"Here, _friend_ ," she repeated, extending a small blue cask to him. Another oddity of the world that the witches had instructed her in. A subtle thrumming power called to Marisa even as she handed it over, and she knew Maughlin felt the same. Some ethereal hunger that they had both fallen victim to for longer than they really recalled. She idly wondered if it had taken Rhea, too. "Robbed from the graves of far better men than you." What did she care? It would be easy enough to find more, and the souls of the great lords she'd been slaying were the only truly important ones. "It should be enough."

Maughlin breathed in deeply, a smile spreading out to his ears. "That depends on what you want to know," he said, trying and failing to maintain a professional composure.

Marisa paid him no attention while she stripped out of her greaves and plate. The hauberk underneath the mail needed no such cleaning, or at least none that Marisa cared about, so she kept it on. Probably for the best; with so much more skin showing, it finally seemed to hit her how badly this curse was affecting her body. Even her hair, never especially lustrous or thick but at least a fine shade of red, was beginning to grey and fall out. Of course, Majula's perpetual sunset streaming in through the windows couldn't have helped the impression she was getting. Marisa almost found herself regretting giving the last of her effigies towards restoring Rhea's humanity. Then again, maybe it would be worth it.

She finally responded to Maughlin after placing the armor on one of his work slates. "What do you know of the Writhing Ruin?" she asked with the condescending tone of a teacher spoon-feeding a question to a pupil. (But it was best to leave Shalquoir out of this negotiation as much as possible.)

"Writhing Ruin?" he asked after a moment of theatrical hemming and hawing. "Afraid I've never heard of it. But there's some ruins out in the woods, aren't there?" A maliciously playful glint shone in his eyes for only a second or two. "I'd take care if you're adventuring out there. I've heard it's more dangerous than most of this land put together. And it... it'd be a shame to lose a customer as good as you, yeah?"

"You aren't fooling anyone," Marisa thought, but for once kept it to herself. "I'm more resilient than your other customers. You should know that by now." Or was being the strange eon itself not enough proof? It didn't matter. Nothing but souls would ever impress Maughlin, and she had better things to do with hers. "I'm not leaving until old hollow Lenigrast finishes the work I'm having him do."

"Of course you're not. Care to go over the new stock while you wait?"

"New stock?" She barked out a laugh. "You never leave the town, _friend_! How you keep finding materials is a greater mystery than this curse."

"And it'll stay that way. There's not enough souls in Drangleic to get that from me." He grinned with little joviality in it. "Though you're welcome to try."

"You're the one who's trying. I've a meeting elsewhere, if you'll excuse me." Which was more consideration than she usually gave him, but he _had_ just given her some direction in her quest. Maughlin was far from her favorite resident of Majula, but at least he was cordial enough when he did feel like talking. Even if it was mostly about running his business and fleecing his customers. Most people around here seemed to match that kind of single-mindedness. It was curious, but not remotely at the forefront of Marisa's mind.

She left Maughlin to his work and felt an oppressive air fall over her as soon as she crossed his threshold to the outside. Another thrum, slower and heavier like the final beats of a heart, pulsed behind her ears. Her masters in Melfia had trained her to detect shifts in the fabric of sorcery, mostly for use in duels to detect opponents' less obvious forms of magic. This, though... this was no shift. This was a butcher's knife slicing through arcane teachings like so much raw meat. A thin stream of black smoke rose from a side window of Cale's mansion. Marisa rushed to the closed mansion door, nearly tripping over her own feet and tumbling back down into the rat king's lair. She shoved the door open with her shoulder, feeling the chain mail dig into her softened flesh, and returned to the library to ensure Rhea's safety.

Rhea dropped another bundle of ragged pages into the lit sconce closest to the entrance. Her grip loosened from the shock of Marisa's sudden entrance, so it was for the best that she'd been meaning to burn them anyway. Her expression stony despite everything, she waited for the witch to react.

"Are you _mad_? Have you gone hollow again?" Marisa shouted, reaching into the fire for anything she could grab before pain took over and forced her hands back. She recognized a few words scrawled on a quickly disintegrating scrap and felt her own words disappear with it. Rhea's face remained steady.

"These books pose an enormous danger to you and everyone in this town."

"Who are you to make that decision?" Marisa snapped. "Do you even have any knowledge of sorcery?" The word "wretch" died in her throat.

"This is another curse," she explained calmly, like she'd rehearsed it. "Older even than the one that has branded us." Those words cut through the constant scream of magical forces assaulting Marisa's senses. Her stance relaxed. "We must make haste. I pray you have found what you need."

Marisa watched Rhea finish tearing several more pages from the same untitled book before speaking. It was only by the grace of Shalquoir that Marisa did not abandon Rhea here, or cast her back down into the squalor whence she came, or simply treat her the way _she_ was treating such invaluable information. Shalquoir and Rhea knew each other, or at least half of that was true, and that was just barely enough to earn Marisa's trust. For now.

"I pray you know what you're talking about. I know where to find the Writhing Ruin."

"Good." Another ream went up in smoke. "I know who he is."


	3. Dusk Dismantled

Tseldora had once been a proud agricultural duchy, subsisting entirely on the efforts of its people. Its duke reaped the rewards and distributed them fairly, and everybody was happy. That was how the books in the Majula mansion described it, but seeing it now, Marisa and Rhea could barely believe it _ever_ flourished. Farmhouses stood in ruins, tents burned bright against the overcast sky, and open mines lined with jagged white crystals marred every smooth surface in sight.

"This is his work," Rhea muttered. Marisa ignored her; she had provided no answers as to who "he" was thus far, and prospects for the future didn't look especially promising. She'd gotten more out of that horrible scorpion hybrid in the sand pit. Had everyone from the old world, the one Rhea claimed to have come from, been so reticent? Marisa thought back to what few conversations they had shared while seeking out the duchy.

_"Anor Londo? Should I have heard of it?" "Mm."_

_"That man was the most ruthless of Gwyn's knights." "He didn't seem so tough."_

_"They fear something as simple as fire?" "They are right to."_

Nothing but questions upon further questions. But that was all well and good; anything Rhea didn't want to reveal, Marisa would learn from Shalquoir one way or another. Probably. When this was all over, when the curse was broken and Marisa sat on the throne as the new monarch, there would be time enough for all the answers she could ever want. And perhaps foremost on her mind, now that she thought of it, was the immediate... well, camaraderie was the wrong word. The mutual tolerance of each other between Rhea and Licia was surprising. Sure, they were both apparently women of the cloth, even if the cloth was of a bit of a different color, but something about Licia still struck Marisa as _wrong_. Should a cleric not be so concerned with souls? Was there anything to even gain from the grifting act she no doubt planned to pull?

They had hiked back, through the ruins of Heide, after the boat at the end of the wharf had proved nothing but another path back to the prison that Marisa had liberated at the beginning of her journey. Simpler times, yes, but lonelier as well. She would certainly have appreciated Rhea's help with that trio of animate statues, if nothing else. Doubling back on foot seemed more important; perhaps they had missed something, or the path to the duke would reveal itself only when traveling in one direction. It had made as much sense as anything else in Drangleic. Or Lordran. Whichever it was, or had been. Perhaps both answers were correct. Licia certainly had had nothing to say to either of them that didn't involve extortion. The only inhabitant they hadn't asked questions of yet in Majula, they realized, was the other Melfian, the one who sought her master. The one who had been petrified at a locked door with all manner of toxic creatures waiting in ambush.

But they hadn't even needed to ask her (for the best; she'd been nowhere to be found in town), as simply thinking of her had reminded Marisa that much of the fog-covered forest beyond Rosabeth had gone unexplored. Maughlin hadn't lied after all, but the reality of the situation had stricken Marisa as slightly more unsettling. How could Rhea remember a kingdom that by all accounts had never existed, and so clearly at that, when Marisa had forgotten the existence of an entire _city_? And she had Shalquoir's word to go on that Rhea was telling the truth about Lordran, unless the two of them were conspiring to lead her astray. And to what end? To prevent her from taking the throne, against everyone's wishes? To prevent her from breaking the curse, against Rhea's?

But, again, Marisa would get those answers in time. And she had bigger things on her mind, physically bigger, things that couldn't wait until they each returned to Majula. A pig roasted on a spit in a run-down camp to their side, and ahead of them the ruins of a cathedral, hair-thin unidentifiable glints only barely visible from this distance, stood like a warning.

"You don't seem the slightest bit concerned," Rhea's voice repeated, snapping Marisa out of her thoughts.

"You've given me no reason to be," she replied, defiant as ever, and pressed on past a cliff face in the direction of the place of worship. "Look. Perhaps we'll find something more fitting for you ahead."

The talisman Rhea carried may have worked well in the old world, but faith required stronger focus these days than a handful of rags could provide, no matter how strong the practitioner. That was one piece of useful information that Licia had decided to give away for free, though only if "disgusted reflexive statement" counted as giving away information. Perhaps she saw Rhea as too primitive to fleece. Perhaps their "friendship" was just another ruse.

The empty camp rose suspicions, of course, even as they left it for the run-down, opal-colored atrium of the cathedral. But the stray mad villager could do nothing to prepare them for what lay inside. It looked as though the cathedral was nothing but an edifice, an entryway into an enormous system of caves, porous with burrows from all manner of creature. Anything worshipped here couldn't be remotely benevolent—or so Marisa thought. Rhea's lips began moving, her voice quiet.

"The gods of Lordran," she started, "also thought it better to be feared. The one we're approaching, the great paledrake, he had a prison built into his archives. He made no secret of it, and kept his scaleless grip tight on the duchy while his friends did nothing but watch." It was easily one of the longer soliloquies Marisa had gotten out of the deceptively ancient cleric, so when she didn't respond, Rhea wasn't surprised. "He thought crystals could give to him what he always lacked. In a way, he was right. But I thought he had learned..."

She trailed off into nothing, though her mouth still moved. That happened far more frequently than the speeches, and was probably the real reason that Rhea stayed quiet. Not out of any sense of mysteriousness, but because she was eons older than she looked, than Marisa could even guess, and it was a wonder she hadn't fallen apart at the seams. Though it was probably supposed to be foreboding, Rhea's warning did more to spur Marisa's curiosities. A hollowed-out cave system with only one apparent exit, further into the heart of the once-great farming community, offered no answers freely. The swarm of spiders that began pouring out of the holes in the walls told no further tales, even as Marisa disintegrated them with white-blue soul energy pouring out of the bat-tipped staff she'd discovered on some corpse on the way here.

A pulse vibrated through the simple wooden door in front of them now, its cadence rising and falling in regular intervals. Faith or none, it was clear to both of them that they had stumbled upon the bema, meaning this entire area between had been the nave. Had the spiders been the congregation? "Hold," Rhea commanded, a bolder statement than she'd ever made in Marisa's presence. "This need not be a fight." She held her talisman in front of her with one hand and pushed open the door with the other, blocking passage with her body. Whatever she wanted to do, she would do without Marisa. Over the shorter woman's shoulder, Marisa could see the figure of someone who was once a man, and could hear the ceremonial ringing of blessed chimes. She watched Rhea enter the bema fearlessly, her talisman held high, and remained on the opposite side of the door.

Only a few minutes later, Rhea emerged again holding a bell with a slender yoke and wearing the faintest hint of a smile on her shrouded face. "The priest is allowing us passage. Come. His sermon can only wait so long." Without another word, she beckoned Marisa forward, through the bema and out the apse, looking down the entire time out of respect. Marisa's eyes wandered and were met with nothing but dirty looks from the priest, wearing a many-horned helm, and his two hooded clergy. The greedy fingers of a mendicant parishioner grasped for Marisa's plate greaves and scraped against the metal, skin sloughing off with the touch. She sneered, but by the grace of whatever god held dominion here stopped herself from reacting further.

The Brightstone Cove, one of Tseldora's more recent epithets, stood before them as they left sanctuary. With every step they took down and around the twisting, open-air mine towards the building at the center of the duchy, every brightly glittering stone that made torchlight superfluous, every experimental abomination they slew in evidence of the duke's ruthless search for it didn't matter what, as long as there was _more_ of it—with every single new piece of evidence, the character of the duke, the old paledrake, solidified itself in Marisa's mind. And she knew that she would have to be the one to bring his own personal curse to an end, as she would end the curse plaguing her and Rhea. As she would end all suffering, when she took the throne.

"Do you have business with the duke?" Marisa asked, armor flecked with the blood of more four-legged spiders than she could count, as she pulled open another heavy opal door.

"I..."

"It's okay," she interrupted, one foot on the rung of a wooden ladder that seemed only slightly newer than the rest of the building. "You can stay here if you must." Fewer liabilities that way. Rhea was too important to lose this close to the end of their quest.

"No. I shall come with you." Again, her voice was forceful. If she had her reasons, she kept them closer to her chest than the bell she clutched. Marisa muttered something noncommittal, the weight of her staff more noticeable than ever as she climbed.

The glistening strands that marred the face of the cathedral grew thicker, sturdier, as Marisa crested the top of the ladder and regained her footing. Once Rhea joined her on the landing, she spoke up, sarcasm thick in her voice. "The duke must be a very strange drake indeed."

"I don't understand," was all Rhea offered in return; her brow furrowed and more skin flaked from the wrinkles.

Four silk-laced stories down, the mine terminated, the floor covered in bones and other detritus from less sure-footed adventurers. Any spiders that could have attacked on the way down had elected not to, apparently, leaving the path clear into a giant cavern, lined floor to ceiling with crystals unlike any seen on the surface. One formation seemed strangely lifelike from a distance. Apparently the same thought had stricken Rhea; she rushed forward before Marisa could even make a judgment call.

"The duke!" she cried, and her voice echoed endlessly into an abyss below. Marisa approached at a much more measured pace and found the corpse of a scaleless beast, mummified in webbing, suspended from the ceiling over the bottomless pit. Rhea's voice disturbed another den of spiders, far larger than the ones they'd encountered on the way here. And another rumble, far louder than a prayer but with about as much chance as having anything good on the other end, brought one claw of the captive drake down to the precipice of the pit. And a massive, two-headed spider thundered its way up, easily dwarfing the long-desiccated remains of the paledrake. Marisa took her staff in both hands; Rhea assumed a defensive position with her bell. They looked to each other with the knowledge that faith and diplomacy would not solve this problem.

* * *

The spider's heads rolled around the battlefield like children's toys, provided the children in question were profoundly disturbed. Rhea's cloak and robes had been badly damaged in the fight, to the point where even that rag-clad pyromancer from Majula would demand modesty. But as she and Marisa panted through their exhaustion, a smile found its way to her face and a breathless laugh escaped her lungs. Behind her own veil, Marisa returned the look. Triumph brought a wonderful sort of euphoria with it. While Rhea recovered, Marisa found her way to a loose web below the paledrake's once-terrifying maw. Something about the air buzzed with power, the same kind she had felt thrice before. It was her turn to laugh.

"Some duke," she said, feeling the great soul merge with her own after two deep breaths. The cavern truly seemed lifeless and empty now, even the natural stones appearing to glow a little less intensely. At the edge of Marisa's perception, she heard a distinct note and the sound of a different power, one that rent the air in two as it passed. She looked around and saw a distinctly unnatural flash of light coming from a small reliquary she hadn't noticed before, a hole carved away in the rock that led to its own passage. Finally noticing she was alone, she rushed as quickly as her exhausted, hollowed legs could carry her into the chamber to see Rhea standing there, the corpse of a man clad in clothes similar to Maughlin's at her feet.

More books surrounded them; in fact, the room looked more furnished and well-kept than nearly anywhere else in Drangleic. Star charts, telescopes, and instruments Marisa could only guess at the nature to littered the desk and the floor. It all looked very similar to Cale's manor, which led to a few possibilities, not many of them good. Instead of demanding answers this time, though, Marisa waited for Rhea to explain herself.

"His curse will be broken," she said after a moment's pause to make sure the man she had slain was actually dead. "No knowledge is worth what it would cost to keep these books intact. Burn it."

Where this resolve had come from, Marisa could only guess, but if it meant ending at least one curse, she could hardly disagree with Rhea's command. Though the duke was not quite what he had been built up to be, it made him and his studies no less dangerous. "Wait in the cavern," she said without question. "Prepare a spell to take us from this place. I'll handle this." She watched Rhea leave and tried not to call attention to the splatter of red on the silverblack finish of her sacred chime. Once the coast was clear and she was alone, she slammed the end of her staff down on the meticulously crafted hardwood of the desk. Though she had no knowledge of pyromancy (a brutal art for the less refined members of the Melfian mage academy), she _was_ inventive. As effortlessly as any other spell, she felt herself tapping into the power of a great soul, and without a word, the nearest book burst into a flame black as pitch. Pouring more will into the spell, she let the smokeless fire grow and spread, turning the miniature archive to a crematorium.

Marisa turned on her heel and let the library burn. It almost felt blasphemous to decide whether or not this knowledge could survive for future generations, but hadn't it caused enough pain? And more importantly, weren't she and Rhea the ones who had discovered it down here, liberated it from the ones who held it captive? Heat poured out of the passageway at Marisa's back. Paper crackled and popped as the information disappeared for good. It was their right to do with their spoils what they chose—and nobody remained in their way to stop them.

"To Majula," she said, her voice cool, to her kneeling companion. For the first time, she saw Rhea's weary face marred with battle scars and stared at the bowed head of a warrior. "We have an appointment with Shalquoir."

* * *

"Well, well. What a fine monument to ruin you've become. So like our dear king." This time, Marisa definitely saw the cat smile. "It hangs around you, you know. Much like your companion. That dear girl from a dead kingdom."

"It's funny that you mention dead kingdoms," Marisa cut in quickly, keeping her clouding eyes on Shalquoir. "What can you tell me of the dragonslayer, Ornstein?"

"Is that fool still about?" Shalquoir asked, not expecting an answer. "Well. I suppose you deserve _some_ meat after picking at these bones for so long. Consider it a parting gift." Her eyes glinted and, for a moment, she gave off the air of being much bigger—no, _greater_ than her body could hold. "Ask Rhea about Artorias. You don't have time to hear that story from me. Ornstein?" She chuckled. "After he saw what happened to that dark-stalking fool, he was never the same. The princess left him here to die." With a theatrical sniff, she added, "I'm sure she can rest easy now."

A moment of infuriating silence followed. "That's your idea of meat?" Marisa's outburst broke the silence simultaneously with the door creaking open. Rhea, now clad in well-sewn robes that seemed too white to be real, stepped inside Shalquoir's home without a trace of the meek nature she'd held before the two had discovered the dead duke. Without breaking her stare, Marisa kept talking. "Rhea. Did Ornstein care for Artorias?"

The question took Rhea off guard. "I... do not know. He was only a legend. But I have seen the lengths people are driven to when affection is on the line." She spoke slowly, choosing her words with care. "With what we saw, it would not surprise me if Ornstein harbored some kind of feelings for his captain. Risking the Abyss to save him is one of the clearest signs of that."

"Senseless nobility must run in the blood," Shalquoir said, her ears flattening by the tiniest amount. "You've your answers. Move along, young ones. Return to the woods. The throne won't claim itself, will it?" The playfulness was well on its way out of her voice. That same great aura surged again, filling Marisa equally with dread and defiance. But challenging a housecat to a magical duel would accomplish nothing except dashing her reputation in Melfia, if word were ever to find its way back there. If she were to ever find her way back there.

Rhea seemed less intimidated, passing over the threshold first. "The woods again," she muttered slightly too loudly. A rippling noise found its way out of Shalquoir's throat just before the door closed.

Marisa began walking towards the entrance to the rat king's domain again, but stopped and turned instead towards the ever-burning bonfire. She'd been near too many bottomless drops today and had no desire to repeat the experience. "You've been spending quite some time with Licia," she said, looking ahead. Genuine amusement, not the smug bite of Shalquoir, rang in her voice. "Has she taught you anything new?" No doubt for a price, but with the battles they had won, no amount of feathers could outweigh their souls.

"She... does not believe we must meet the king to break the curse," Rhea said, just as hesitantly as before. Of course, Marisa thought, that was why she had come here to begin with. Not to usurp the king, but to meet with him and discover his supposed cure. With how many kingdoms had fallen before Drangleic, surely Vendrick knew something about permanent death. "She believes we can restore power to the gods, and in return, they will break the curse for us." Even through Marisa's milky white eyes, she could clearly see the sparkling delight on Rhea's face.

No, nothing as simple as delight. A cure was at hand; their journey could end. Their _lives_ , their exhausting and filthy and decaying lives, could end if they so chose. To call the relief washing over both of them something as base as delight cheapened the entire spectrum of human emotion. This was hope.


	4. Tread the Floods

"Search the basement of Cale's manor," Licia had told Rhea. "A vessel lays broken there. You must collect the pieces and have Lenigrast restore it."

And, for once on their horrible journey, the task was nearly as easily said as it was done. Rhea and Marisa returned to the manor and paid Cale little mind. The stairway beyond his peculiar map continued only for a few steps before turning to an earthen ramp and welcoming in the stagnant, chilled air of a crypt. What had been here? Who had made this their home before Cale? Marisa's fingernails came off painlessly in the dirt while she dug for another ceramic piece, and she knew that the questions she was asking herself didn't matter.

On the other side of the basement, inside a cave with an empty metal chest, Rhea dirtied her robes kicking up dust and filth in search of her own missing pieces. What shards they had both found sat in a pile behind them, surprisingly lightweight despite the material. Hopefully it wouldn't prove too fragile for Lenigrast to work with. Rhea had mostly kept to herself during the excavation, aside from small noises of surprise every time she unearthed a new piece. Marisa's voice brought welcome comfort to her ears.

"You recognize this." She said it as though it were fact, not as a question. "This vessel Licia would rebuild. What do you know of it?"

Rhea dithered on how much she could safely tell Marisa, causing greater hesitation and care in her words than usual. "We called it the Lordvessel. I do not know how it worked; only that it was an artifact most sacred. There... was another. Like you." Nothing but the sound of fingers digging into dirt. "A chosen Undead. One who would restore the age of fire." Vileness seeped into her words like a tree on rotten earth. "And break the curse."

"You've mentioned the age of fire before," Marisa said after unearthing a tiny shard of this legendary vessel embedded particularly deep into the wall. "Whoever this chosen Undead was, it seems he succeeded. At least in one respect." Sometimes, Marisa found herself wishing the spiral of darkness on her shoulder itched or burned. She wouldn't find herself forgetting her situation that way.

"The age of fire was... different."

Marisa waited, but nothing more came. Conversation faded to the sounds of digging, but the pile already seemed sizable enough; neither really knew how much more luck they would have excavating this relic. The footsteps of a third person echoed down the stairwell, and her voice gave her away instantly. It had the underlying, smarmy pleasure that dripped from Shalquoir's every word, but none of what made the listener think there was even a chance they could be in on the joke.

"Well done," she said, her saintly robes kicking up a small cloud in the tomb already hazy with dirt. The two spelunkers turned their heads at Licia's arrival to see her kneeling in front of the fruits of their labor. (And of course, it was only _their_ labor, Marisa found herself thinking. If it weren't for Rhea, Licia would have soured her on devotees long ago.) "Lenigrast ought to be able to reforge the Lordvessel now. Let us remove ourselves from this awful place." Rhea kept her face calm, but Marisa could only imagine what emotions were racing through her head. It would definitely be something to bring up while they waited. "Gather them up."

"It won't kill you to gather some yourself," Marisa said, her clenched teeth showing clearly through her deteriorating cheek. "You've got those robes for a reason." Licia glared.

"Allow me to help," Rhea cut in, defusing the situation as any true saint would. The two women each took roughly half of the shards and placed them into the makeshift bindles of their upheld robes. Marisa grabbed the remaining debris in an armful, and the trio made their way to Lenigrast's smithy in silence.

"I'm no potterer, you daft girls," the bearded, gruff Undead said as Licia unceremoniously dumped her share of the vessel on his work table. He rested a red-hot halberd blade on an anvil and began clanging his hammer against it steadily. "I don't care how much you pay me. I'd have more luck making a whole sow."

"Then gild it. Do _something_. It's this poor couple's only chance at breaking the curse." Licia's voice oozed with sympathy too strained to be real. "And certainly, the promise of life is a miracle befitting your expert hands?" Lenigrast grumbled, ignoring all three of them—including the confused glance Rhea and Marisa had shared slightly earlier in Licia's plea—and Licia returned it. "The gods mightn't appreciate your role in denying them their rightful souls."

The smith's hammer stopped its rhythm abruptly. "For Caitha's sake," Lenigrast groaned out. Steam shrieked from the weapon as he dunked it into a slack tub of briny water from Majula's coast. "All right. Leave it here. I'll see what I can do." Marisa brusquely left her pile next to Licia's, while Rhea set her collection down piece by piece, apparently being the only one who cared about treating the Lordvessel with proper respect. "Now go bother someone else. You'll spoil my focus." Without looking up, he jerked his head towards the door. The three women filed out and, with the enormous obelisk at their backs, looked out on the town as though it would be their last time there.

"We've an important journey ahead of us," said the saint, her intonation more serious than she'd exhibited at any time before. "I'll be gathering supplies. I suggest you do the same." Without much else, she turned on her heel and returned to the mossy rotunda she'd made her own at the beginning of Marisa's journey.

Rhea's fair features stretched into a smile, full of warmth and kindness, and even though Marisa knew her own face was much more grotesque, she had to return the look. "I've waited so long, Marisa of Melfia." The land sounded foreign, but the person attached to it could not be more familiar at this point. "This curse has ravaged countless kingdoms, condemned so many souls to a living Hell. And today is the day we end it all. Everything will have been worth it." Soft footsteps and rattling greaves followed each other to the edge of the pit; both figures sat after a moment, glad to rest their bodies. Salt brushed Rhea's senses every time she inhaled, and she truly had gotten used to it by now. Even the sunlight seemed to shine brighter.

"You said your homeland was just a legend," Marisa said, as idly as one would comment about the weather. "But I've found myself forced to believe more legends lately. Tell me, what brought you here?" Rhea made a surprised noise, but the cold touch of Marisa's decaying hand over her own silenced her. "You know more about me than I about you. Imbalances can be dangerous. And we have time before Lenigrast finishes."

Rhea hesitated a few seconds longer. "...Very well. I am Rhea, of Thorolund."

* * *

The hours crept on apace, night catching both of them by surprise. Between a surprisingly detailed discussion of the pantheon of Anor Londo and a hushed rumor about the murder of a firekeeper, the two had relocated from the rat king's front door to the rocks around the bonfire. Greedy though she was, the old hag Melentia was glad to provide a giant salamander tail for the two to share for dinner—on the cheap, of course. The woman in the green robe sat nearby, poorly hiding her attentiveness, as Rhea spoke of the Knights of Gwyn and the fall of Artorias. (Poor Ciaran, Marisa thought, so oblivious to Ornstein's affection towards that same man.) Yet one subject remained beyond explanation, and at a lull in the conversation, Marisa chimed in.

"You mentioned the age of fire was different. More than simply _having_ fire. How?"

The Herald stood up, her stance different than usual. She seemed on guard, but did not interfere with Rhea's words. Rhea had grown far less reticent about her past over the course of the night, so she saw no harm sharing the intricacies of the age of fire with Marisa. "It was the age of the gods. Gwyn, Nito, Fina... every god. They slew the dragons that came before them with the fire they discovered. And they prospered, as did the world, before the flame began to fade. And when the flame began fading, Gwyn became desperate.

"He wanted that power. He had grown addicted to it, I suppose. He entrusted the great Witch of Izalith to recreate the flame, but she failed." Rhea's voice softened. "She created Chaos, that pitiable woman." She'd mentioned Chaos before, Marisa realized, and how it led to the creation of a few religions and the study of miracles, but had never said anything about a witch being behind it. The Herald stepped closer. "With no other options, Lord Gwyn cast himself to the flame for the betterment of his kingdom and his people." Perhaps this legend was one passed down through a family line, or by the pious; either way, Marisa had certainly heard of the importance of the flame. The First Flame, Licia had called it, and had spoken of it in no further terms.

"But humans... even gods must burn out eventually. Right?" Marisa spoke without looking at Rhea, her attention instead focused on her hand, one finger in particular more bone than flesh. "What happened after Gwyn fell?"

"The one like you. The one who was chosen. She was to end the curse. But I know not of her fate." Both women could guess. "The last time I encountered her was shortly before my traveling party left for its final pilgrimage. Into the tomb of the one who gave us the first death."

"That pile of bodies with a cleaver?"

"I have since learned that the ones who possessed the great souls in my time, in my world... they are not the same as the ones of Drangleic. The lay of the land is similar, and some landmarks, relics of Lordran, they remain." Rhea stopped, casting her eyes at the green-hooded woman who had taken her own seat next to the fire. "The curse remains. It is as though I am staring into a mirror, but all the reflections are distorted to just barely beyond recognition."

The bonfire crackled while Lenigrast's hammer sung steadily.

"The mantle of the gravelord has been passed from transient being to transient being."

Marisa and Rhea both looked up, shocked that the other knew about something so seemingly impossible. It took another moment of flames licking the broken hilt of a sword for them to realize that neither had said anything. The woman in green had been the one to divulge that information, cryptic though it had been, and Marisa looked on in surprise. The silence continued, but with newfound expectancy hanging in the air.

"The mantles are inherited. The cycle continues. But you have unearthed the Lordvessel, and with it, you may end the cycle. You may end the curse."

The Herald rose to her feet as gradually as she had joined the conversation, then returned to her usual position overlooking the water along Majula's coastline. As the air seemed to return to both their lungs, Marisa and Rhea shared another glance. Marisa was the first to speak. "She has said nothing untrue so far." Though what she _had_ said had been fairly limited. "We may actually be near our journey's end."

"She certainly seems more trustworthy than Licia," Rhea responded in a hushed voice. At this time of night, surely that charlatan of a saint would be asleep, comfortable in whatever bed she had made for herself. Rhea of Thorolund looked to the stars above, wondering for the first time how many before her had done the same. Wondering if she was the only one who remembered what the sky used to look like, and how the sun had never seemed to set upon Lordran. Treasuring the seafoam that entered her lungs, basking in the exactly-bright-enough light of the bonfire, and simply letting herself relax. The curse had weighed heavy over the heads of humanity for generations, and it would end tomorrow. The feeling of another body against her side ousted her from her reverie.

"The Herald tells me that I will become the next monarch. And you," Marisa said, quietly, trying not to move her lips too much, "have made this awful quest more tolerable than it would have been otherwise. Would you reign at my side?" The question came out with little hesitation for how serious it was. Perhaps, Rhea thought, that was the way Melfians did things. But her pale, human skin, seemingly unmarred by the curse, turned slightly red at the idea. She watched Marisa's milky eyes stare into the distance, watched the wind rustle the loose cloth underneath Marisa's chain mail, and felt herself smile.

"I would be honored to reign beside you, Marisa of Melfia."

And truth told, Rhea was not certain what about the idea felt so right. It was definitely not the prestige—this kingdom was all but dead; what prestige could be gained?—nor did the idea of holding a position of power ever really appeal to her. But if this were really going to be the end of the curse, a great change, a mighty and triumphant sunrise over the terrible night, would follow. The two constants in Rhea's life before this moment had been darkness and decay, but with Marisa's arrival, hope had sprung anew. Hope and joy and companionship, all feelings that Rhea knew had perished alongside the Way of White itself, finally _were_ again.

"Fantastic," Marisa responded, oblivious to the crises resolving themselves in Rhea's head, and with the cadence of someone wholly unsurprised by the answer. She pulled her thin, black mask over her mouth before looking at Rhea. "With that settled, perhaps we should settle ourselves, as well. We've an arduous journey ahead of us, and we'll need our rest."

"Is there a room? Perhaps in Cale's manor?" It certainly looked big enough. Maughlin had set up an inn, of sorts, but with the beds simply his cleared-off display podia and the rates he, for some reason, insisted upon charging, it seemed more trouble than it was worth. It barely bothered that smith, the Gilligan fellow, but he seemed the only one willing to take Maughlin up on _any_ of his exorbitant offers. And of course, neither Lenigrast nor Shalquoir tolerated guests.

"Why bother?" Marisa asked, care not remotely an element of her words. "We have a bonfire, the sky is clear, and the sea is calm." She tilted her head back against the rock they'd both propped themselves against, giving a stern eye to the moon. A warning to the gods, perhaps, that the only oncoming storm would be her. "And we've not spent a night in Majula since we met. Save the extravagant beds for Castle Drangleic." She looked forward again and removed her chain mail in as fluid a motion as she could manage, leaving her in a mask, a tattered leather tunic, and an unexpectedly comfortable pair of leggings she'd taken to wearing beneath her greaves. She cast the metal away, between her outstretched legs. "We'll enjoy what we have."

Rhea felt too exhausted to protest, even if she'd found something objectionable with Marisa's words. Feeling such intense emotions had been draining, not to mention the countless years she'd spent in the Tomb of the—no, in Majula's gutter. Smiling felt comfortable, and smiling alongside someone who had rescued her felt even better. Those were the important things to feel at this moment. With few further words in her mind and none for her lips to claim, Rhea rested her head upon Marisa's shoulder.

* * *

"Are you two quite finished?"

The voice of an angered saint roused the adventurers sleeping at the bonfire almost immediately. Marisa rolled away from Rhea quickly, removing her left arm and calf from the cleric's personal space. She'd never noticed that was how she slept, but fortunately she seemed to move with such speed that Rhea would continue not to notice. Rhea began getting to her feet.

"Did you prepare for the expedition to the castle? Or did you stay up all night regaling each other with stories like children?"

Rhea hid her face in the white folds of her hood, not in any condition to deal with Licia's judgment. Marisa gave what felt like a sneer, though her face lacked that kind of control.

"No matter. The blacksmith has completed his duty. I have already given him his payment." Licia indicated the large circular cloth pack she had strapped to her back by turning on her heel, her dress kicking up ash with it. "We leave when the sun reaches the top of the monument. _Please_ try to cooperate. This benefits all of us."

As Licia walked away, Marisa rose to her feet, aided by her staff, and joined Rhea's side. Anger burned inside her head, but she knew that it would be a terrible idea to summon that black fire that had rid another stain from the world. For now.

"Should we tell Shalquoir where we are going?" Rhea asked, and gently brought her hand into Marisa's. As did the First Flame, so did the flame inside Marisa fade, and she drew the mask over her mouth again. "Come, Marisa. She deserves to know."

But before they could take another step, the cat approached them, albeit at the same relaxed pace at which she always moved. "Ah, you poor monarch," she started, perching on a fragment of a stone wall that must, at one point, have been a house. "All dressed down with everywhere to go. You smell strong. Both of you." She purred. "You will have earned that strength before long." If Marisa still had eyebrows, she would have raised them at the phrasing of that bizarre compliment. "Don't forget that I warned you about those souls, dearies."

Rhea cocked the corner of her mouth upwards, but kept her eyes hidden. "You have a history of warning people about the beneficent, Alvina."

Shalquoir's ears remained in place, her tail swung in the air, and not a single hair on her coat so much as bristled. Her purr this time had a melodic aspect to it, but without the insufferable superiority that accompanied every other facsimile of a laugh. "Take care in handling the souls, Marisa of Melfia and Rhea of Thorolund. You're already quite close to the Abyss. It would be a shame to lose both of you to its whims." Rhea's face straightened, but Marisa couldn't help but express herself.

"Alvina? You've been lying to me, of _all_ things, about your name?"

The cat clucked her tongue, which should have been anatomically impossible. "You're asking the wrong questions. You have a habit of that." Whatever the right question was, it escaped Marisa; she found herself wordless.

"How long has it been?" Rhea asked, energy pouring from each sentence. "What of Lordran? Was Vendrick Gwyn's successor?" But Rhea's words, too, fell on deaf ears and shattered into nothingness. The three stared at each other for a mere moment, but each asynchronous breath they took felt hours long.

The robe-clad silhouette of the saint from Lindeldt appeared at the mouth of her rotunda home, in clear sight from their position, and Shalquoir turned back towards the open door of her own house. "He was a Father, wasn't he?" she asked, and that sense of self-satisfaction had finally returned. Her tail pointed high, she leapt off the rock with unerring grace and parted ways.

Licia rolled her eyes when she approached her traveling companions. "Of course. We have no time to waste. The gods will wait for their souls no longer. Prepared or not, we must make haste." She cast a harsh glare at Marisa's relative nakedness, her decaying flesh and discolored body. "Cover yourself, mage. How you dress with Rhea is of no concern to me, but you should sooner spit in the gods' faces than appear before them like that." Before Licia could finish her admonishments, Marisa was already pulling the chain mail over her head at the bonfire. Rhea knelt nearby to help gather their casting materials, lest something undesirable happen along the way to wherever Licia planned to lead them.

The unspoken suspicion flowed from Rhea's mind to Marisa's mouth. "What _is_ your plan to deliver souls to the gods?" She pulled her chausses over her feet and up her legs. "How does the Lordvessel play into it?"

"You will know when we get there," Licia snapped, and spoke no further.

The trio collected their belongings in Damoclean silence and left the town through the fallen archway to the west, the sun at their backs. Before long, Rhea recognized their path as the one that had taken them to the soul of the crystalline sorcerer from her world, or of the massive two-headed spider of Marisa's. The woods felt more familiar to her now; when the three of them reached the forked road, she had to actively will herself to stop walking. The branch they traveled took them to a path hidden amongst tangling underbrush and infected, engorged hollows, both neatly managed with help from Licia's black-patinated bell. The path, roughly lined with rotting planks of wood to give the barest expression of stairs, ended at the top of a hill housing a grey pavilion sealed away with a heavy door. As Marisa approached and rested her hand on the door out of curiosity, some ancient, unseen mechanism whirred to life: Inset lockstones turned in time with each other, and the door split open down the middle, each half swinging inwards.

Licia exhaled. "We have arrived."

Before the three women sat a stone altar of three entwined snakelike figures, each missing their heads and twisting upwards against each other, as if in preparation for an offering they did not yet have. Licia entered after Marisa and carefully began removing the restored Lordvessel from her pack. Rhea entered last and the door closed behind her, catching her off guard. She turned her head back around to see Marisa running her fingers across what looked like etchings of a great dragon carved as a mural into the walls. Marisa's touch had also set a similar door on the other side to open. That was all Rhea could process before Licia fully revealed the Lordvessel, stark against the saintly cloth and stone floor. It looked much as Rhea remembered it—or at least, how she'd heard it looked—though the veins of silver running through its cracks seemed far newer and stood out against its natural golden color. Perhaps Lenigrast had taken artistic liberties.

"What we must do," Licia explained for the first time in this tortuous adventure, "is raise the Lordvessel to the altar. Then, we three shall pray, and the gods will hear us. And the curse will be broken."

Everything seemed to make sense in Marisa's mind. This holy relic had been destroyed, which was why the curse had persisted. Rhea's chosen Undead had failed. But the three of them were here now, with the symbol of the gods before them, and only a few sacred words between them and humanity's salvation. Marisa shared a smile with Rhea as they joined Licia on their haunches, ready to raise the Lordvessel to its proper place.

A burst of white-blue light assaulted her eyes, then blackness took over as she collided with the wall.


	5. Built to Fall

The world around Marisa remained dark, though she knew her eyes were open from the stabbing pain behind them.

"Arise, my servant."

The familiar voice of the king of the rats echoed around her, its location unclear. She pushed herself to her feet—when had she even been knocked over?—and felt soft dirt under her palm, her knuckles cracking loudly against it. The wall she leaned against was damp, but craggy, rocky, absolutely without any moss or lichen whatsoever. Had the self-crowned vermin brought her here? Was this the meaning of that ring she had long since placed in the bottom of a sack and left in Cale's manor?

And as suddenly as she had found herself in the cavern, she was looking up at the grey ceiling of a shrine, sunlight streaming through the open door to her left. Her entire body felt dislocated, but when she mustered the strength to look over herself, everything seemed in its proper place. The more pressing mystery was how she had ended up on the floor in the first place. The last thing she remembered doing was touching the Lordvessel. She pushed herself up to a sitting position with the heels of her palms; from her new vantage point, few questions remained.

The vessel had splintered again into shards even smaller than the ones that had been recovered. Some larger fragments, such that they were, still glowed with a faint blue-white energy. The headless serpent statues had taken the brunt of the magical explosion, if the scaled stones littering the ground between Lordvessel pieces were any indication. Their offering had obviously displeased the gods Licia so hoped to appease—and speaking _of_ , where had that so-called saint gone? Marisa looked towards the open door and across the dais to the closed one, the one through which they had entered. The only other person among the debris was Rhea, who seemed just as shocked as Marisa. Her eyes, her brown eyes, widened even further as they fell upon Marisa's opaque white ones.

"Marisa... are you well?"

"Of course," she responded, bothered only by a troublesome clicking noise in her jaw. Maybe she had been injured in the blowback. It didn't matter. "Are you?" She could see nothing physically wrong with Rhea—no blood through her white robes, no burns on her face, nothing that should bring any cause to worry. Rhea gave Marisa a look longer than most as lines of worry formed on her forehead.

"I was not hurt when... that happened," she said. "Did you see which way Licia went?" She rubbed her eyes and, as an absent motion, reached for her hood. Marisa was too occupied getting to her feet to notice that Rhea's hood wasn't covering her hair.

"No, but I'm scarcely surprised." Marisa pulled her thin mask over her mouth and hid a scowl. "Leave it to Lindeldt to disappear at the first sign of trouble. Come, Rhea. We need to find her." With Rhea again hooded and on her feet, Marisa joined her at the narrow exit to the shrine. "She will explain herself, one way or another."

"Are you certain you're in the right condition for that?" Rhea asked. When met with no reaction, she reached out and took Marisa's right hand in both her own. Each finger above the knuckle had been seared clean of skin and muscle, leaving nothing but bone and ligament behind. The explosion surely hadn't been _that_ strong, but the state of Marisa's body had not been fantastic to begin with. Rather than terror or surprise, Marisa regarded her own hand with pointed nonchalance.

"I thought this would happen," she said. "Human effigies are difficult to come by, and even harder to make. I knew it would be a risk," and she brought her hand back to her side. Only then did concern begin to appear in her mind, if not on her face. "But you were a greater risk. I am still amazed you hadn't gone hollow when I found you." She glanced down at her left hand and found it in similar condition. "If you had, I might have slain you without a second thought."

Black spires, slick with rain from an imposing storm cloud, glistened in the distance. Rhea turned her attention to them. "I have heard stories about the curse. About how it takes one's mind." She stepped forward into the hazy sunlight of the woods; it seemed strange that such a storm could be raging so closely with the weather as it was. "As long as one has purpose, one can never truly become a hollow."

"And yours?" Marisa asked, lowering her hands and raising her head. Thunder crackled through the sky, much fainter than it should have been. Marisa felt the chill of the stone path as she too left the shrine—had her boots been destroyed in the explosion as well? Fantastic. "I would be flattered to be your purpose, but I didn't exist until twenty-some years ago. It takes longer than that for a kingdom to fall." She looked out over the ruins ahead of them and saw, after some distance, a tunnel carved into the side of a small hill. The geography seemed to line up with the storm and, more importantly, the only escape route Licia could have taken.

"I was a cleric. A woman of faith." Was? That seemed strange. "I sought an end to the curse." Rhea followed Marisa's footsteps down the winding path back to the forest floor. "When I was left in that pit by that... callous _egg_ ," she continued, spitting the words from her lips, "I had faith that the curse would still be broken, and I would finally be left with the dignity of death." Remaining in lockstep beside Marisa, she moved along in silence for but a moment. The still body of a knight in gleaming armor, save the blackened marks of a lightning strike on his chest, finally rested against a small stone wall. Rhea paid it no mind.

"With time, Vince and Nico lost their faith. And with their faith went the last fragments of their humanity. They protected me from the bloodthirsty skeletons for a while." The entrance to the tunnel stood before them—had they even walked that far? Marisa shook her head. Of course they had. Her blackout had disoriented her. Rain echoed faintly off the strange stone walls. Rhea kept moving, undaunted. "They fended off the paledrake's henchmen and gave me time to seek shelter. But even they couldn't stay forever. They grew rabid... and lost their flesh." Only then did Rhea's pace slow; it stopped entirely when Marisa touched her shoulder, the cloth textureless under her fingers. Rhea jerked her entire body away, then thrust a hand inside her robe to reach for the sacred bell.

"Rhea—"

"Marisa of Melfia." The cleric's eyes burned despite the darkness of the tunnel. The chime sounded once, but chaos reverberated around them. "Promise me. Promise me you will not go their way. No one has come closer to breaking the curse." Her words came out heavily, her voice stronger than it had ever been. "See this through with me. Stay with me until the return of death!"

The last word took almost too long to fade from their ears. Rhea and Marisa stared each other down in silence until a rhythmic padding sound, soft shoes on fresh stone, rose above their breaths.

"Come. The queen is near."

Marisa recognized the silhouette, but Rhea needed to turn around to confirm her suspicions. The woman in green from Majula, the Herald, stood with her hood down and her short hair blowing gently in the otherwise stale air. She had come from the other end of the tunnel, and at once Marisa and Rhea realized that this had to lead to the black spires of Castle Drangleic. Whether Licia had used them to gain entrance or had simply let them tag along, neither knew.

"The queen?" The thought crossed both their minds, but Marisa was first to say it. "Licia?"

The Herald shook her head, a smile almost invisible in the darkness. "A usurper with a long-forgotten name. But will you both reclaim the throne from her?"

The conversation they had had the previous night flickered to life in their memories. Of course the Herald had overheard. The Herald heard everything. She was the vessel into which all information flowed and out of which fell only tiny fragments.

"I promised to reign beside you, Marisa," Rhea said, her voice now quiet, the rage burnt to ash.

"I will see it fulfilled to our dying breaths." The mage turned her attention to the outline of the Herald. "You deserve to see it, too. Come with us." The Herald remained silent, but let the rustling of her robe and her muted footsteps speak for her. "Rhea," Marisa said, and returned to walking.

Though the other end of the tunnel had not been visible during their argument, they seemed to reach the cold, windy exit much sooner than anticipated. Rain drenched their clothing—still the Herald refused to raise her hood—and came down so heavily that their visibility had almost been better in the tunnel. The narrow crevasse they had exited into whipped the wind into a frenzy, even lifting Marisa's chain mail. With conditions so poor, they had all been very lucky to notice the corpses of three lightly armored hollows splayed across the path and avoid them instead of tripping over them.

Then the world opened up in front of them.

The wind died down enough for them to raise their heads and see the enormous castle, looming as a dragon over its next conquest. Torches fit for a giant roared despite the rain on either side of an archway at the base of a long, imposing staircase. In the distance, at the top of the staircase, the iron doors of the castle stood open against the weather, flanked on either side by indistinct blue lights. Corpses, all similar to the three at the entrance, littered each landing, growing greater in number as the stairs went up.

The three approached one of the bodies that had slid its way down to the bottom of the stairs. Its armor bore the same black scorch marks as the white knight from the forest. "Herald," Marisa said. The woman, standing under the archway in a feeble attempt to protect herself from the rain, looked up through matted-down hair. The weather had wrought havoc on Marisa's body, stripping both hands entirely to bone and, if nothing else, providing her some relief from the elements. "Why must we reclaim the throne from the queen? I thought we were here to see Vendrick."

The Herald did not speak. Instead, she walked forward, avoiding corpses with every step like passing through fog, and began the long ascent to the castle gates. Marisa's words died in her throat, but they would not have made it through the air to the Herald's ears anyway. She wrapped her fingers around her staff and pointed the tip towards the woman who had done nothing but cause them problems since they decided to venture out of Majula. The ghost of a thought— _when did I leave Melfia?_ —flickered behind her eyes, but she paid it as much attention as the Herald had paid her— _her_! The one who had slain Death itself! And suddenly she was undeserving of answers? The black fire from the Duke of Tseldora lapped at the edges of her memory. It would take such little effort to call upon it again, to bring it into the world and prove that she, Marisa of Melfia, was not someone to be ignored—

"Patience."

And the hand of mercy reached out. It graced her completely, body and soul, quelling the flames and leaving behind only wisps of smoke. Pale, damp fingers released their gentle grip on her forearm, and she lowered her staff. The torchlight played off the rain splashing against the stones at the feet of the person who held her back, who stopped the spread of death with kindness. Marisa's shoulders lowered. "Thank you," she said quietly, not sure how much was from emotion versus her own personal decay.

The corners of Rhea's lips drew upwards before she turned forward and, Marisa only a step behind, followed the Herald to the castle gates. As they crossed the threshold, the voice of a man echoed off the masterfully crafted marble walls of the foyer. It had no ominous presence behind it, but neither did it sound especially welcoming. In fact, it was difficult to determine any kind of emotion behind its words—perhaps it was simply the last phrase on the deteriorated mind of some unseen Hollow.

"Who are you? And by whose permission do you stand before me?"

"Chancellor," the Herald said into the air in what seemed to be her only tone of voice. In front of her, a strange mist coalesced into the transparent form of a human, one who may at one point have been considered attractive but now lacked any sort of corporeal form to substantialize that claim. It took a moment for the spectre to recognize the woman who had known his name, but Rhea was certain that he smiled.

"My dear Shanalotte. If you've come to see your uncle, he is on his throne with his queen. Go, go. You still know the way."

Marisa had nothing but questions, but felt a less gentle pressure on her arm this time, meant to actually hold her back. Whether her lips were snarling or just looked that way by default now, if this Chancellor could see her—if this Chancellor cared—he would have said something by now.

"Thank you, Chancellor."

And with that, the ghost disappeared, leaving only the three women and the arrhythmic beating of rain on stone all around them. Would the storm ever end, or would it pour until the abyss below them filled up and made the castle a lakefront estate? But Rhea's benign thoughts were interrupted again, this time by a sharp gasp of air from the woman in green in front of her.

"Herald?"

"Shanalotte?"

Rhea and Marisa spoke at the same time, but naturally, the one from the lost era used the until-recently-lost name. It was nice to be able to refer to her by something other than an epithet. She'd been on a first name basis with Marisa of Melfia and even Licia of Lindeldt, to her chagrin, for days now. Shanalotte of Drangleic had a much better feel to it. And Shanalotte herself seemed much better before the last syllable had been voiced; her back straightened, her gaze grew stronger. She turned to her traveling companions, reached up to the hood shrouding her face, and lowered it, exposing auburn hair and fair skin and what seemed in the low light to be two differently-colored eyes.

"I am Shanalotte," she said, and even her voice sounded more certain. "I apologize for having to keep my name from you for so long. But you will understand soon. We must go to the throne."

"I can see it from here," Marisa said, pointing towards the back of the foyer, past another set of stairs towards another door that had already been opened. From this vantage point, none of them could see inside the room, but it certainly made sense. Why make the path to the throne more difficult than necessary? What monarch would stand for that? She took the lead, gladder that her leg muscles no longer ached with every step. It was no wonder Vendrick remained here with how inconvenient he was to reach. Once she arrived in the throne room—was it truly the throne room? It was far less regal than expected. Two simple wooden chairs stood at the back with a fraying red carpet leading the three of them to an audience with two invisible monarchs.

Shanalotte did not stop walking when she reached the end of the carpet and continued between the two thrones to a raised platform in the far back of the room. Rhea's bell chimed softly; a pale light illuminated the false throne room and revealed what Shanalotte had been able to see without help. Recessed into the wall above the platform were several metal rungs, fresh enough to gleam unlike the ancient, disused feel of the rest of the room. Rhea brought the light from her bell closer and noticed a pile of dust to the side of the ladder and an out-of-place stone on the wall next to it. This was deliberately a false throne room, she realized. An audience chamber once, perhaps, but not even that any longer. Marisa joined the other two and looked upwards, but Rhea's light did nothing to show where the inevitable climb ahead of them all ended.

"The queen is at the top of this tower," Shanalotte offered, then brought herself up to the platform. Without waiting for the other two, as though she knew they would follow, she gripped the rungs and began climbing.

Marisa and Rhea traded glances, then harsh whispers.

"The king's _niece_?"

"Haven't we climbed enough?"

"How did Licia know about this?"

But questions outweighed answers by innumerable measures, and they each decided that the only way they could make any progress would be to press on. If Shanalotte really were the king's niece, she knew the castle better than either of them—yet exactly as well as Licia. Speculation would breed nothing useful. And so they climbed.

* * *

When they reached a landing, the rain was still falling. Shanalotte, hair now fully matted down, waited outside a doorway that lacked any kind of ostentation and seemed to have been built solely to allow access to the actual throne room once the ruler had made his third unbearable climb. The walkway between that door and the next, one that led to a tower that looked like it belonged here, was only a few meters long, but offered a view of the mountains surrounding Castle Drangleic that fell nothing short of breathtaking, even in the weather. Shanalotte looked upwards, to where she knew the queen sat, and kept her eyes fixed on the throne room above her until she heard one person, and then a second, reach the top of the ladder.

Rhea had climbed first, and the entire way up her bell rang with each step, illuminating the claustrophobic chamber and making sure that she never missed a rung and plummeted back down below—for curse or not, a fall from so great a height would have caused enough damage to make her wish she was dead. Marisa's hands and feet were both entirely bone now, ruined in the climb, but somehow (perhaps through the magic within her, as Carhillion may have once told her) she still had enough control over her limbs to grasp things and support her own weight.

Marisa saw the beginning of a staircase in the tower ahead of them and almost immediately considered jumping off the open walkway. But they were so close to their answers and to the throne, to her goal of becoming the queen and ruling with Rhea, that she stayed herself. Queens had to suffer through hardship, and this was but one more on her already generous list. For what she sincerely hoped would be the last staircase she'd have to climb today, she took the lead; Rhea followed, and the Emerald Herald carried on behind both of them, seemingly keeping up with their pace while maintaining her own at the same time.

"Shanalotte," Marisa said after what had to have been several grueling minutes of walking. "The king is your uncle. You are royalty."

Their feet padded against stairs and eventually came to a stop when Marisa realized she wasn't being answered. Only then did the renewed voice of Shanalotte begin speaking.

"That is what the inhabitants of this castle know me as. Vendrick's brother says he created me. He says I am his daughter."

Rhea looked at Marisa fearfully. The ancient words of a forest-dwelling beast passed silently through her head. Shanalotte kept walking forward, and as she passed her two companions and rounded one last turn in the stairwell, the final landing appeared. The doorway there opened to an opulent room: Gold-trimmed crimson banners emblazoned with the crest of Drangleic hung from the ceiling, and stained glass glowed of its own accord behind a delicately carved throne too large for the person sitting in it. A pile of bones, mostly skulls, lay almost in reverence in front of the throne.

The three entered the true throne room through the side archway and the details of the scene before them unfolded. The bones had a trail of black blood behind them, as though there had been a struggle. Two heavily armored knights stood at attention on the dais of another of the castle's towers, in clear sight of the throne. And the person sitting in it clutched a blackened knife in one hand and wore a sickeningly satisfied grin along with the long-tailed robes of a cleric of Lindeldt.

Rhea stared down Licia with hatred burning her throat for the first time since she had been left behind in the Tomb of the Giants. She grabbed her bell by the stem and for a moment looked ready to bludgeon Licia with it. Instead, she began to shout.

"You _used_ us! You used us to get here, and you have stolen the throne from us! We were to rule! We were to end the curse and finally find _peace_!" She shook her bell and the note had never sounded more desperate. "I have lived more lives than I deserve! I should have died with the First Flame! And you have _taken_ this from me!" Without thinking, she raised her chime and summoned the fire within her. Black flames licked at her fingers and the tip of her tongue, and when it looked like she was finally ready to cast the spell...

She crumbled to her knees. Nothing would make this better. Killing Licia would not break the curse. Killing Licia would damn her soul even further, and no one remained who could pardon her for her sins. No one remained who could save her. No one but Marisa, who rushed to her side and placed Rhea's pure, unmarred hand between her skeletal monstrosities. Marisa had never had the opportunity to calm Rhea like this, as had been done so many times before with the roles reversed. She hoped that anything she could do would work. The world outside the two of them fell dark.

Shanalotte's attention remained on Licia throughout the entire confrontation. With Marisa and Rhea occupied, she spoke in a calm tone. "You have slain Nashandra."

"You've always been good at observing," Licia shot back, her eyes lingering on the bones at her feet.

"This does not make you the queen. This is not the true throne."

"You think I don't know what your 'true throne' is?" Licia sheathed her dagger in a belt on her waist. "The stories are true. The First Flame. The Kiln. The Darkstalkers who helped shape the world to their liking." She gave a knowing look at the corpse of Nashandra, then immediately focused on Shanalotte. "I was made to rule Drangleic, Herald. Not fuel it."

Shanalotte had no response. She simply watched as Licia's attention turned to Marisa and Rhea, and for the first time the Herald acknowledged the four of them as a single unit. Perhaps this could still work.

"Marisa of Melfia. Rhea of Thorolund." The queen addressed her subjects and was met with glares, but continued on. "This world can still thrive. We can still end the curse. Rule alongside me. We have the power together to rid this plague from our queendom."

Marisa looked up from a quiet conversation with Rhea. "How can _we_ end the curse? _You_ have the throne."

"The Herald will choose another Undead. They are in no short supply. We will bring them here and sacrifice them to feed the embers of the First Flame that the former queen kept below this castle." She put on the look that had gotten her so far in Majula. "Surely you believe in the greater good."

Licia and Marisa stared each other down in silence long enough for Rhea to raise her own head. The anger she'd felt towards Licia had burnt away into defeat much earlier in the confrontation. But she knew now that there was still a chance, no matter how slim, and all they had to do was survive on Licia's terms... at least for long enough to get the result they desired and finally reach an end to the time she continued to borrow. There was nothing saying they needed to acquiesce to every one of Licia's orders, and if anything were to _happen_ to Licia after the curse had been broken, well, regicide was only a crime if it could be tried. Ha. Perhaps Marisa had rubbed off on her after all.

"We agree," Rhea said, and with little circumstance, Licia sat up straight and barked out an order.

"Herald. Find a new Undead and lead them to the Kiln. The reign of Man begins today."


	6. A Grey So Dark

"I cannot be the queen of a dying land," Licia had said after the first few nights of her reign had passed. She had ordered her subordinates—the only three left in the castle who would listen to her—to return to Majula and spread the word. "Tell them Drangleic has a new queen. One who will break the curse and restore life to this world." But everyone present had known how much of a lie that had been. And yet, an idea had crossed Marisa's mind as they traveled back through the woods.

"Herald," she said, not looking at her. Though it had only been a handful of days, the ravages of the weather, and of exploring the castle, and trying to appease Licia while running her own plans in the background, all those factors had sloughed the skin from her body almost entirely. Her thin black mask covered exposed jawbone now; her skeletal fingers curled around a staff that she held almost flush against wrist and arm bones, draped only with robes. The one most prominent place she still had skin had been taken over by the black whorl that, had she not gotten the point already, reminded her of her curse. And perhaps it was by what little mercy the curse had that she still found herself able to speak—and see, for her eyes had clouded to a perfectly opaque white long ago and threatened every day to fall from their sockets as more skin retreated. It would not be long before she became a walking skeleton, protected by little more than her magic.

Shanalotte tilted her head, but offered no other acknowledgement. Marisa continued. "Shouldn't a king be the one to sit on the true throne? And I like everyone in Majula." Mostly—but Maughlin didn't irritate her enough to be cast to the flames. "But there are no kings among them." She reached into a sack at her side and dug deep, looking for a small gesture of royal benevolence. Pulling out a yellowed ring, she put into her voice the smirk that could never grace her face again. "I happen to know exactly where to find one."

When the three arrived back in Majula, Marisa sent Rhea to speak to the laddersmith. It would probably be for the best, she thought, not to speak with anyone until she could find a proper way to hide who she truly was. There was no sense in so thoroughly destroying the goodwill she'd built among the townspeople.

Gilligan had readily complied, dropping a ladder down into the pit of almost the perfect length to reach the so-called sunken kingdom of Marisa's one-time master. It had taken him nearly no time at all, but none were surprised. If one's entire profession were ladder-making, of all things, one's work would have to be impeccable.

And it was so in the pit that Marisa's first act as the royal executioner came to pass. Not all at once, of course—the soul of a king could be snuffed as easily as any other man with enough force. But to bleed a king to unconsciousness, then keep him only barely alive with clerical blessings until he could be returned to Licia's throne... even a rat would be impressed with the cunning and cruelty necessary to enact such a plan.

Shanalotte's royal blood had opened the gates to the true throne without an ounce of it needing to be spilled, but then again, of course it had. All four women had learned early that the castle obeyed the whims of its kin. Even the two massive knights standing guard at the throne bowed in deference to the petite, green-cloaked woman in a gesture Licia found darkly amusing. The only figures in that massive oubliette who did not bow were the faceless golems, identical to those peppered around the castle, suspended in a pit surrounding a closed dome that, according to Licia, was nothing short of the true throne.

"Humans are all alike," spat the Rat King. "Blind to anything but your own want."

The true throne had a small entrance in front of the dome, and presumably one that would magically seal. Rhea assumed that under a very special set of circumstances, the golems would form a bridge to the throne and allow whoever the true heir was to enter, but clearly that would not be the case here. The miracle she would need to use to seat the king on his new throne had gone eons without use, but it conjured itself in her mind effortlessly. Almost immediately after ringing her chime, an explosion of force radiated from her body and launched the king of rats forward, through the waiting door.

Black flames licked at Marisa's bat-wing staff and fired off in a ball towards the still-breathing body of the king. As soon as the hex connected, two stone slabs slammed together at the opening, sealing off the throne. A moment of tension and three held breaths dominated in the sudden stillness. And as suddenly as it had fallen, the tension broke when a pyre of the same black flame engulfed the throne, roaring with the flesh and bones of the king offered to it.

"Long live the queendom," Licia said quietly, a wicked smile splitting her face in two.

* * *

"There is the Varangian ship."

Shanalotte had long since learned to hold her tongue and remain in deference to Queen Licia. She may have held a high position in the queendom, but no higher than the Cleric of Thorolund or Executioner Marisa. At times, it seemed her queen would prefer to ignore she even existed. But she smiled, remained obedient, and answered every question Queen Licia posed, including the best way to get in contact with other countries.

"It remains docked at a wharf near the bastille. The seas are yours to command."

Drangleic had not prospered since the coronation of its rulers. The curse continued, and more went hollow by the month. Only through the rapidly dwindling promise of a new dawn had Marisa and Rhea remained sane. Shanalotte had never been bound by the curse to begin with—and how curious, that—while Licia seemed wholly satisfied with the empty seat of power she held. As long as the flames burned below the castle, she believed Drangleic to be her perfect, flourishing queendom, and one certainly worthy of expanding its rule.

"Go. Bring my power to the nearest country."

And Shanalotte followed the Executioner and the Cleric down to the wharf beyond the Tower of Flame. They had visited there once before, and had dealt with the poor Varangians who had taken up a modest living there in their typical fashion. The ship's ghostly blue lights hung from cages on the masts in the distance, an ill omen to all unfortunate souls the vessel would soon encounter.

The three women remained silent as they boarded the ship. A scaled beast, two bodies sewn together and each given terrible weapons, awaited them below deck. With a flick of the Executioner's staff, the sentry fell, steam surrounding its body from the waterlogged cabin. The flames had claimed its soul before it had even reached the ground. Marisa, now nothing more than bones shrouded in black, filthy robes, climbed one further ladder to reach a hidden cabin. Rhea's clothing had greyed with time, almost appearing silver in the interior light, and dripped a mixture of standing water and blood down behind her. The Herald remained untouched, unmarred by battle, unfazed by the disgusting fluids being absorbed into her hood.

"There's a sea chart here," Marisa spoke with the voice of a much older woman. They gathered around a table with a number of navigational tools and a surprisingly comprehensive map, for being locked away so deep into such a tiny ship.

"Cainhurst... Boletaria... I've not heard of any of the places on this map." But the promise of change, of something new, of _progress_ kept any despair from Rhea's voice.

"Neither have I. Maybe these filthy pigs came from one of them. Let's pick a place and sail."

Rhea raised her perfect eyes to what was left of Marisa. "Suppose..."

Vertebrae turned and clicked against each other. Fitting with her position as royal executioner, Marisa had replaced her face mask with a full hood. Eyeless sockets stared out from a slit at Rhea while bare finger bones clutched the edge of the wooden table. "Suppose?"

"Suppose we didn't come back."

Marisa's body remained still. Water splashed against the hull outside and echoed into their chamber. "You would betray your queen?" she asked, her voice more serious than it had been in a long time.

"The _queen_ ," Rhea continued, her own words staying firm, "has lost her mind. She thinks Drangleic to be more than the shell it once was. That she believes there is anything here worth fighting for is one of the biggest farces—"

Somehow throatily, Marisa's laughter overtook Rhea's words. "I thought your new position had made you complacent, Rhea." The sense of a smile crept into her voice, recalling the same kind of look she'd given Rhea several times before, when words like "look" still held meaning. "Leave the queen to her toy set of a castle. Let's go."

Rhea reached a hand to touch Marisa's, and her other towards Shanalotte's. She couldn't hide her smile, especially over the fact that she'd just been tricked in an act of much-required playfulness that she hadn't expected from Marisa under her new title. But the concern was real, too, and as she turned to look at the Herald, her words brimmed with it. "You won't be able to return here. To the land that gave you life." And apparently _kept_ giving her what it had taken from so many. "If you wish to serve Licia, you need only say."

The Cleric of Thorolund and Executioner Marisa waited with bated breath for the Emerald Herald's reply, but found themselves not having to wait long. She spoke in the same even keel as always. "He has been of such little importance. We will be better without him." The flickering lights cast shadow on her face, but her lips were curling upwards.

Shanalotte had finally shown an emotion that hadn't been intolerably mysterious. Marisa laughed, her jaw bone rattling. "It took you long enough!" She draped her arm around Rhea's shoulders and realized she'd probably have to buy gloves at some point. A new land with new people, all of them presumably not cursed, would require a better disguise. "Well? What do you say? Cainhurst seems as good a choice as any."

When the destination had been set, the boat creaked to life and left the wharf.

* * *

Shanalotte had lived up to her moniker and heralded their arrival in the snow-covered town at the foot of a mountain. What few inhabitants were there had told her that it had been quite some time since there'd been any newcomers, least of all by sea. Most business was done by stagecoach in Cainhurst. They had requested a team of four horses to scale the mountain and request audience with whoever ruled this land, and Marisa had only briefly taken delight in the idea of the Executioner having a chariot of her own. She was an emissary of a dying kingdom and needed to have some decorum.

The three of them had arrived and found the castle deserted, though surprisingly well-kept. It was clear that there had once been a ruler here, given the unending supply of regal statues, velvet carpets, and flying banners. But maybe the poor mountain town had been so detached from their king that he had died one day and nobody had noticed. They had certainly seemed not to have any idea about who lived in the castle.

They'd had a slightly easier time finding the throne room here than with Castle Drangleic, but it would have taken a truly mad architect to outdo the geometry of that castle. They opened the massive doors and climbed, yes, one last staircase to find two thrones, fitted for those of human size and clearly not the massive gods that Drangleic had expected.

"We want to give those people a better life. Can you ask them what they need of us?" Rhea asked Shanalotte kindly, a tone of voice entirely different from Licia. The Herald bowed out of sincere respect and took her leave. Marisa's bones settled into the old polished wood of the throne.

The citizens of Cainhurst had selected a liaison fairly easily, a representative of the town who would speak on their behalf to Shanalotte, who spoke on the queens' behalf herself. Their speaker, a young woman named Annalise, took a fast liking to the Herald and soon began accompanying her to the royal chambers, at first without the queens' request but soon by their insistence. Annalise stood as a wealth of knowledge of this country, telling Cainhurst's new rulers of places such as Hemwick and Yharnam, other far more bustling cities closer to the less extreme areas of the land.

It hadn't taken long from there for Marisa and Rhea to further insist that Shanalotte take a stagecoach with Annalise and open more communication with those cities. Cainhurst had gone ignored for long enough, and yes, some part of Rhea noticed that what she was ordering was very similar to Licia's commands, the ones that had sent them to this strange new place to begin with. But there were _people_ here, and more importantly there was hope. Hope that things would go better here than they had anywhere else.

And for the first time in too long, it looked as though it would. The exiles from Drangleic watched as Cainhurst transformed from a quiet mountain town with little industry to speak of into a trade hub. Merchants would ride north with massive containers of salt and purchase food unavailable in the inland regions, delicacies fished from the stormy waters along the coast of Cainhurst. The queens demanded no tithe (what use did they have for money?) and asked only that Annalise be paid for her services to the crown.

Then, one morning, Annalise woke with a whorl on her back.

Word spread through the town before she had even reached the queens' chamber. There, they explained to her the terrible curse that had befallen them both. Marisa removed her hood for the first time since she'd put it on. If they wanted this land to avoid the same fate that had taken Drangleic and Lordran and countless kingdoms in between, they needed to keep it quarantined. No doubt it had spread to their liaison because of how much time she'd spent with them. Annalise moved to the castle under the pretense of becoming the queens' advisor. Shanalotte was meant to become the ambassador to the outside world, but after her first expedition to the town, she never returned.

And word continued to spread. The Cainhurst sellers told the Yharnam buyers rumors about the strange life-sucking mark and the way it spread like a plague and wasn't it odd how the queens hadn't aged a day in the year it had taken them to transform Cainhurst? And the rumors found their way to places like Oedon Chapel and the Healing Church, places nobody in Cainhurst knew about beforehand but which insisted upon making themselves known as soon as news of the immortal queens of Castle Cainhurst reached them.

But as Annalise's curse persisted, Rhea noticed her own skin sagging, flaking. Her hair began to fall out, more and more by the day. And she saw Marisa's movements stiffen, the magic animating her body invisibly seeping from the gaps between her bones. And before long, it became undeniable. They had burned brightly, but for far too long. The day Rhea had hoped for since long before she had been dragged from the gutter of Majula had come.

In the end, hadn't they both gotten what they had wanted? A throne. A land to rule. A queen to rule beside until their long-awaited deaths. Their souls had lost all strength over time, burning and burning within their bodies until nothing but embers remained.

There was so much they knew they would never know. The fate of Drangleic. The future of Cainhurst. How Annalise had fallen victim to the vile curse of immortality, and where the Emerald Herald had disappeared to. They would never know of the approaching band of Healing Church priests, executioners in their own right, nor of the eternal martyr leading their march. But they had lived long enough. They had seen enough kingdoms rise and fall to know now, and not merely be told, that the cycle could never be broken. The players ebbed and flowed, leaving the table when fate decided; the pieces remained.

In one final act of defiance, in the massive throne room of Castle Cainhurst, Rhea of Thorolund and Marisa of Melfia locked hands and waited for the end together.


End file.
